8 April 2025 – As SARS, we continuously optimise our systems to provide clarity and certainty to taxpayers and traders and make it easy for them to fulfil their tax obligations. These enhancements help to make our digital platforms safer and more secure.
Therefore, as per our previous communication, we plan to implement the enhancements to our Tax Directives system on Friday, 11 April 2025 in line with the IBIR-006 Tax Directives Interface Specification Version 6.803.
The current scope of the enhancements is outlined below.
- Tax-neutral transfers were covered in the previous release. However, some allowable transfers pertaining to unclaimed benefit funds (48) and inactive members with insufficient information (54) were not updated. In this release, we cater for these allowable transfers. As with all transfers made on or after 1 September 2024, these transfers must also include the values in the Vested, Retirement and Savings components, even if the relevant component value is zero. The Recognition of Transfer (ROT) must also be submitted and include the three components.
- A new tax directive reason has been added on the IRP3(a), backdated (antedated) salaries and/or pensions with source code 3623 for reporting.
- Before 1 September 2024, the definition of Retirement Annuity Fund provided that if a member of a retirement annuity fund discontinues their contributions to that retirement annuity fund and their interest in that fund is less than R15 000, the member may access their full interest in that retirement fund before retirement as a retirement fund lump sum withdrawal benefit taxed in accordance with the tax rates applicable to a retirement fund lump sum withdrawal benefit. From 1 September 2024, a member of a Retirement Annuity Fund who discontinues their contributions to that Retirement Annuity Fund may access the full value in the Vested and Retirement components in that fund before retirement, as a retirement fund lump sum withdrawal benefit taxed in accordance with the tax rates applicable to a retirement fund lump sum withdrawal benefit, if the sum of these components are R15 000 or less. It must be noted that this R15 000 limitation remains applicable at fund level and not at policy level.
- On 1 March 2022, Emigration Withdrawal was replaced by Cessation of South African Residence. The provisions in the definitions of the various retirement fund types that allowed members to access their full interest in their preservation funds or retirement annuity funds on termination of membership as a result of emigration during a transitional period were deleted with effect from 1 September 2024. The system will no longer accept any tax directive applications submitted on or after 1 September 2024 for the reason “Emigration Withdrawal”.
- The RST01 — Directive Application by Non-Resident for Relief of SA Tax for Pension and Annuities and the IRP3(a) — Application for tax Directives: Gratuities and Savings Component Withdrawals can be accessed on eFiling and submitted with supporting documents for processing. The manual submission channel for these application forms will be replaced by eFiling with effect from 11 April 2025.
- RST02 — Request by Non-Resident for a Refund of South African Tax for Pension and Annuities in terms of a Double Taxation Agreement will be discontinued. On submission of a tax return during assessment a possible refund might become payable.
- The transfer provisions under paragraphs 2(1)(c) and 6A of the Second Schedule will be extended to include Retirement Annuity Funds. This means that a member of a Retirement Annuity Fund, who has attained normal retirement age, as per the rules of that fund but has not elected to retire, can transfer their retirement interest to another Retirement Annuity Fund on a tax neutral basis using paragraph 2(1)(c) as the transfer reason with effect from 1 March 2025.
Please do not submit tax directives files on the current form after 16:00 on 11 April 2025. We will queue and process such files after we have upgraded the Tax Directives system.
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